Share this article

Agents reeled the crooks in through the fake website, called 'Carder Profit', with which they hoodwinked their targets into believing they were on the hunt for stolen information.

Instead, they eavesdropped on discussion threads and private messages, and tracked genuine thieves through their IP addresses after they logged on.

Credit card fraud: The arrests came after undercover FBI investigators set up a bogus website where fraudsters involved in carding schemes could buy and sell stolen information and programmes

Authorities from 30 different countries are believed to have been involved in the operation.

Agents were also able to notify the credit card providers of more than
411,000 compromised credit and debit cards, and 47 companies, government
entities, and educational institutions that their networks had been
breached.

SNARED: HOW THE FBI REELED THE CROOKS IN

The sting began in June 2010, when the FBI established an undercover 'carding forum', that mimicked those operated by criminals to buy and sell information.

Agents reeled the crooks in through the fake website, called 'Carder Profit', which they used tohoodwink their targets into believing they were on the hunt for stolen information.

Instead, they eavesdropped on discussion threads and private messages, and tracked genuine thieves through their IP addresses after they logged on.

Authorities from 30 different countries are believed to have been involved in the operation.

Agents were also able to notify the credit card providers of more than
411,000 compromised credit and debit cards, and 47 companies, government
entities, and educational institutions that their networks had been
breached.

The alleged fraudsters, operating out of various countries in America, Europe, Asia and Australia, would have pocketed a further £131 million from
debit and credit cards had they not been stopped, the FBI said.

A
total of 11 people were arrested in the US, while suspects were held in
12 other countries including the UK, Norway, Italy and Japan.

All are accused of buying and selling hacking programs and stolen personal information online.

One of those arrested in America, called Mir Islam, who uses the name 'JoshTheGod', claimed to be a member of UGNazi, a group that has claimed credit for numerous recent online hack attacks.

He was also a founder of Carders.Org, a carding forum on the Internet.

Officials said he had information for more than 50,000 credit cards.

The FBI said it seized the web server for UGNazi.com, and seized the domain name of Carders.org, taking both sites offline.

In a separate development, a security report Tuesday said a wave of cyber attacks has likely stolen at least $80 million from bank accounts in Europe.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said: 'As the cyber threat grows more international, the response must be
increasingly global and forceful.

'The coordinated law enforcement actions taken by an unprecedented number of countries around the world demonstrate that hackers and fraudsters cannot count on being able to prowl the internet in anonymity and with impunity, even across national boundaries.

'Clever computer criminals operating behind the supposed veil of the Internet are still subject to the long arm of the law.'

Highly sophisticated fraud ring targets 'high rollers'

Between £48million and £1.6billion has been stolen from bank accounts in a massive cyber bank raid where fraudsters raided dozens of financial institutions around the world.

The ‘highly sophisticated’ ring had bypassed physical chip and pin identification to siphon large amounts from high balance accounts, a study by global security firm McAfee and bank secuity specialist Guardian Analytics found.

More than 60 firms have suffered from what it calls an ‘insider level of understanding’.

The criminals created a computer code which automatically finds a victim’s highest value account.

It then transfers money to a prepaid debit card which can then be drained quickly and anonymously.

The ‘malware’ is so advanced that it can stay on the victim’s computer to conceal the theft, altering the target’s bank statement.

The report said: ‘If all of the attempted fraud campaigns were as successful as the Netherlands example we describe in this report, the total attempted fraud could be as high as 2billion euro (£1.6bn).’